IBM Canada and its Hamilton-born leader take centre stage at economic summit
Hamilton son Dino Trevisani wants to use data to help make healthcare more efficient, starting in his hometown
The big name on the bill at a summit of local business and political leaders on Tuesday was the Manhattanite who roots for the Ticats.
Dino Trevisani is president of IBM Canada, a Hamilton native and the son of a steelworker. And he's planning to bring innovation and jobs to the former Stelco Tower in a partnership with Hamilton Health Sciences.
Sometimes all it takes is taking a couple of floors in the Stelco Tower...- Dino Trevisani, President and General Manager, IBM Canada
He spoke to a jam-packed room of business and political leaders from Hamilton and Burlington – a region dubbed the "Bay Area" at the region's second annual economic summit.
"I'm just a small guy from Hamilton, right?" Trevisani said in an interview with CBC Hamilton after his speech to the crowd. "At the end of the day, all I'm trying to do is create an impetus for change."
Trevisani's speech came near the end of the all-day event, held at the Royal Botanical Gardens, which featured speeches by the mayors and Premier Kathleen Wynne and sessions on economics, city-building and collaborations.
'A couple of floors in the Stelco Tower'
The IBM-HHS effort is expected to start with space for 50 workers in the Stelco Tower, but it remains unclear how many jobs will be created right away.
It depends on which projects have funding and how many people they need – details that are still being worked out ahead of the centre's anticipated opening in October.
Plus, Trevisani wants IBM's investment to act like a magnet for other companies to invest here.
"Sometimes all it takes is taking a couple of floors in the Stelco Tower and making a partnership with Hamilton Health Sciences to create a centre for the world on health care," he said.
"That's why when people ask me, 'How many jobs are you bringing?' I'm like, 'Look, guys – don't worry about that. That will come. And don't look at IBM only. Look at all the other companies that come in."
'Predicting who's going to get sick, before they get sick'
Trevisani wants to tap into the world of cognitive computing to give doctors, nurses and hospital systems insights into what's going to happen to people's health, not just wait for them to come through the doors of a medical institution.
The research has particular significance in Hamilton, where some of the region's top researchers have been puzzling for years over the disparities in lifespans and overall health across the city depending on what neighbourhood people live in, what environmental pollution there is and how much money they have.
"Predicting who's going to get sick, before they get sick, because of those environmental factors or socioeconomic factors," Trevisani said. "And then address that before they enter the hospital system."
Mining data to find health answers
That's not always as simple as, for example, mapping the proximity of a person's house to industrial pollution.
"You and I can just say, it's because of Stelco and Dofasco," he said. "But is it really because of that, or are there socioeconomic factors?"
"So how do we support that so we can eliminate that disparity?" he said. "The insights on data are going to give you the answer. No one study is going to give you the answer."
Armed with that, IBM can take technology and the results of what's discovered here and take it around the world to other places to help them design cities better, for example.
"We can then lead the world," he said. "And we should be leading the world."